Michele A. Flournoy

Michele A. Flournoy is currently President and Co-Founder of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Previously, she was Senior Advisor, International Security Program, at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Her expertise is in Defense strategy and policy; War on terrorism; U.S. and coalition military operations; post-conflict reconstruction; Nuclear, chemical adn biological weapons.

Flournoy was previously a "distinguished research professor at the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University (NDU), where she founded and led the university's Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR) working group, which was chartered by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff to develop intellectual capital in preparation for the Department of Defense's 2001 QDR."

"Prior to joining NDU, she was dual-hatted as Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Threat Reduction and Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy. In this capacity, she oversaw three policy offices in the Office of the Secretary of Defense: Strategy; Requirements, Plans, and Counterproliferation; and Russia, Ukraine, and Eurasian Affairs. She was awarded the Secretary of Defense Medal for Outstanding Public Service in 1996 and the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 1998." 

"In addition to two edited volumes, Flournoy has published more than 50 articles on a variety of international security issues. She holds a B.A. in social studies from Harvard University and an M.Litt. in International Relations from Balliol College, Oxford University, where she was a Newton-Tatum Scholar." 

She is a member of the Aspen Strategy Group, the International Institute of Strategic Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Executive Board of Women in International Security. She is a former member of the Defense Policy Board and the Defense Science Board Task Force on Transformation."

Flournoy "has worked on issues that range from national security strategy, to lessons learned from Somalia, to planning for U.S. operations in Haiti. She had previously been a research fellow at the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, where she managed three collaborative research projects and edited Nuclear Weapons After the Cold War: Guidelines for U.S. Policy (HarperCollins, 1992). She is the co-editor of New Nuclear Nations: Consequences for U.S. Policy (Council on Foreign Relations, 1993) and the author of numerous policy analyses, book chapters, and articles on a variety of international security issues."


 * Signatory (2005), Project for the New American Century
 * Listed Expert, Intellibridge

Media quotes

 * Al Qaeda broken, but dangerous: "As a result, Americans must gird themselves for a war against an ever-changing enemy. 'This is a campaign that in some ways will never be over,' says Michelle Flournoy, a terrorism expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here. 'This is about risk management, about reducing the likelihood and severity of attacks to a level we can live with.'" --The Christian Science Monitor, May 24, 2002.

Related SourceWatch articles

 * Future Visions for U.S. Defense Policy
 * Center for a New American Security

External articles

 * National Defense University QDR Working Group, headed by Dr. Michelle Flournoy, presented the results of its year-long "force-sizing" strategy study, National Guard, December 2000.